Cover Story: The Last Bombing Show: Marine Air Group 12

The last U.S. unit still engaged in combat in Viet Nam when the
cease-fire came was Marine Air Group 12two squadrons of Sky hawk
fighter-bombers flying out of Bien Hoa, 14 miles northeast of Saigon.
TIME Saigon Bureau Chief Gavin Scott visited the squadron on its final
day in action. His report:

COLONEL DEAN MACHO, veteran Marine flyer and crew-cut C.O. of Air Group
12 greeted the final day of the war with a farewell bombing sortie over
the Mekong Delta. Whistling off into the hot pink dawn with three other
A-4 Skyhawks, Macho made radio contact with a Vietnamese forward...